Curtis Sittenfeld's Reading List

"This isn’t exactly a romp in the sand — it’s about a daughter and her cruel, charismatic alcoholic father — but it’s very well written and absorbing."

"Susanna’s second novel, “Sea Creatures,” is out this month, and it’s an intelligent page-turner (that is, the dream combination) about, among other things, South Florida, art, insomnia and marriage."

"All that said, I loved Tobias Wolff’s “Old School”"

"I loved “Oh the Glory of It All,” by Sean Wilsey (in which Wilsey gets kicked out of one boarding school after another)"

"I can’t wait to read “& Sons,” a forthcoming novel by David Gilbert about an author like J. D. Salinger who writes a book like “The Catcher in the Rye.”"

"I’m currently in the middle of “Are You My Mother?” by the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. It’s much more meta and nonlinear than I had expected, and totally engrossing."

"But the book I’ve truly been helped the most by is actually a parenting book called “Sleeping Through the Night: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night’s Sleep.” It’s by Jodi Mindell, a sleep researcher and psychology professor who’s also a mom, and I swear by this book."

"This happened last year with a woman named Bianca Zander, whose terrific first novel is called “The Girl Below.” It’s about a young woman who returns to London after a decade in New Zealand and confronts strange events from her past."

"“Far From the Tree,” which I finished recently, is the most amazing book I’ve ever read — in fact, I continue to talk about it so much that my husband suggested I get a “Far From the Tree” tattoo."

"I’ve always strongly identified with Toad from “Frog and Toad.” Especially in the story in which he won’t get out of the river because he doesn’t want anyone to see him looking funny in his bathing suit — and thereby attracts the attention of the nearby lizards, dragonflies, field mouse, etc. — he’s so completely the ridiculous instigator of his own problems."